A VERY QUICK NOTE ABOUT THE TONE OF THESE RECAPS
I've
heard that it can come off that I'm not enjoying myself on these trips.
Nothing could be further from the truth; I'm not taking 10 days
of time off and spending thousands of dollars to fly down to Disney
every two years because I hate it. If it seems like I'm complaining,
take it in the same spirit as my drunken heckling of the President Obama
robot at the Hall of Presidents to show me the birth certificate.
A SECOND VERY QUICK NOTE MORE ABOUT THE CONTENT OF THESE RECAPS BUT I GUESS ALSO KIND OF THE TONE TOO, THE AUTHOR SHOUTED
We've
already been to many of the rides and events that will be discussed
here, and to keep things fresh and interesting, I've come up with a
foolproof method to spice up the trip report: Making up a bunch of crazy
shit. If you're interested to see what may have been exaggerated, check
the end of the trip report, where I'll come clean to anything I can
remember.
Now with that out of the way - It's that time
again. Every two years myself and my partner in rhyme take a break from
driving the converted schoolbus that we live in around middle schools
performing inspirational rap numbers and edu-tational skits about how
crack is whack to come spend a bunch of days in
Disney. This year we're staying at the Wilderness Lodge, a resort that I
believe is "deluxe" - one notch down from the top tier. Our room is
very nice - one of these days I'll take a ton of pictures.
And that day is today!!! (Well, okay, no, it was various days throughout the vacation; today is the day I embed them with Blogger. Even still!!!)
And that day is today!!! (Well, okay, no, it was various days throughout the vacation; today is the day I embed them with Blogger. Even still!!!)
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| The shower has mosaics of Bambi, Chip & Dale, and the Pocahontas raccoon. You guys. |
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| Our balcony |
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| The headboard |
Whoa, wait, I guess I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Let me go back to the beginning: Nothing interesting happened in Albany. Try and contain your surprise.
Once we landed, we immediately began the proud Florida tradition of perspiring heavily. Disney has a service called Magical Express where your bags are checked directly through to your room, so all we had to do was get on a bus and perspire heavily until we arrived.
At check in we were presented with the vaunted "magic bands" - a wristwatchy little piece of plastic that does everything the old "key to the world" card used to. It's your room key, meal plan card, credit card, and I found out the hard way that it really has to be pressed right up against the reader as I stood outside our door doing karate poses and the door didn't open until I gave up and pushed the band right up on the reader. (Also, when we checked in, the front desk guy was like "Make sure you both use your magic band on the door. The Lodge has to know you're here!" So if we vanish, you'll know where we went. We are one with the Lodge now.)
We barely had time to check out the room (I took a bunch of those pictures on other days), because we had a 12:00 reservation at the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney. Here comes my only actual complaint about Disney: The bus system sucks. You can be waiting for up to 20 minutes for a bus, in the hot sun, because for some reason there's very little shade and one bench for a bus-full of people. It's the only thing I don't like, and sure enough we ended up waiting 20 minutes in the sun with nowhere to sit and then had a 30 minute bus ride on top of that. Don't ask how I felt when they started playing a Creed song. *
Once we landed, we immediately began the proud Florida tradition of perspiring heavily. Disney has a service called Magical Express where your bags are checked directly through to your room, so all we had to do was get on a bus and perspire heavily until we arrived.
At check in we were presented with the vaunted "magic bands" - a wristwatchy little piece of plastic that does everything the old "key to the world" card used to. It's your room key, meal plan card, credit card, and I found out the hard way that it really has to be pressed right up against the reader as I stood outside our door doing karate poses and the door didn't open until I gave up and pushed the band right up on the reader. (Also, when we checked in, the front desk guy was like "Make sure you both use your magic band on the door. The Lodge has to know you're here!" So if we vanish, you'll know where we went. We are one with the Lodge now.)
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| what's in the box |
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| I HAVE THE POWERRRRRRRRRR |
We barely had time to check out the room (I took a bunch of those pictures on other days), because we had a 12:00 reservation at the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney. Here comes my only actual complaint about Disney: The bus system sucks. You can be waiting for up to 20 minutes for a bus, in the hot sun, because for some reason there's very little shade and one bench for a bus-full of people. It's the only thing I don't like, and sure enough we ended up waiting 20 minutes in the sun with nowhere to sit and then had a 30 minute bus ride on top of that. Don't ask how I felt when they started playing a Creed song. *
Once we got to Rainforest Cafe, we were
seated four feet away from a skeptical elephant who proceeded to watch
us eat. Being that we were in the Rainforest Cafe, I oped for the exotic
jungle dish known as chicken tenders. I also got the chicken stir fry -
well, okay, I got the shrimp stir fry and asked for chicken instead.
For desert we had mango sorbet, which was both very tasty and light
enough so that I was able to move afterwards.
After a quick look through the stores, we were ready to leave, which
meant it was time to contend with the buses again. At this point we'd
sworn to avoid the buses whenever possible. Luckily, our resort has a
boat launch that goes to the Magic Kingdom, from where we can catch the
monorail to Epcot. Since our two most visited parks are Epcot and the
Magic Kingdom, there's going to be a lot of complimentary boat rides in
our future.
After a rest for a couple hours we took a tour of the resort. We're at Wilderness Lodge, which is "inspired by turn-of-the-century National Park lodge" - kind of a generic, woodsy upstate or even Canadian feel.
There's a Christmas tree in the lobby that almost reaches the ceiling and I swear must be over 70 feet.
Left: It's so big I had trouble getting more than half of it in the frame.
Right: It's so big I couldn't hold the camera straight long enough to get an in focus picture! Just pretend it's vertigo.
There's a river that starts in the lobby, goes under several bridges, a waterfall, and then into the pool. There's even a fake geyser that erupts randomly. (Oh, and a beach. It makes no sense having a beach in the north woods, but there you go.) Here's a nice picture of the walkway back from the bus (it's nicer than it sounds, honest):
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| No, that's not creepy, elephant. You just keep staring at me eating these chicken fingers. |
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| This is the boat launch. The boat on the left goes to the Magic Kingdom. |
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| Here's a boat. Not the boat we were on, because we were on the boat we were on when we took this boat picture. Of the boat we weren't on. But it's like the boat we were on, which we were on. |
After a rest for a couple hours we took a tour of the resort. We're at Wilderness Lodge, which is "inspired by turn-of-the-century National Park lodge" - kind of a generic, woodsy upstate or even Canadian feel.
There's a Christmas tree in the lobby that almost reaches the ceiling and I swear must be over 70 feet.
Left: It's so big I had trouble getting more than half of it in the frame.
Right: It's so big I couldn't hold the camera straight long enough to get an in focus picture! Just pretend it's vertigo.
There's a river that starts in the lobby, goes under several bridges, a waterfall, and then into the pool. There's even a fake geyser that erupts randomly. (Oh, and a beach. It makes no sense having a beach in the north woods, but there you go.) Here's a nice picture of the walkway back from the bus (it's nicer than it sounds, honest):
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| Wow! Such Christmas! So festiveness! |
Our last venture of the day was taking the boat to the Magic Kingdom dock to meet two buddies of ours who are in Disney for a couple days,
Sir Nicholas "Web Unit" Weber OBE, and his wife Lady Akiko "Keeks"
Weber, a noted sculptor of collector-grade equestrian ceramics. They'll
probably be making cameos until they grab rope ladders dangling from
helicopters and leave the property on Tuesday.
Before bed, let's take a look at the cute towel animals we were left:
That's about all there is to report for day one. Tomorrow we're hitting the Magic Kingdom.
Before bed, let's take a look at the cute towel animals we were left:
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| Alligator / Thing I used to wipe up a orange juice spill |
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| Turtle / Disability fraud criminal |
That's about all there is to report for day one. Tomorrow we're hitting the Magic Kingdom.
K.Ham Korner: Alliteration! People need to be way more
cognizant of the crowd and not congregate smack dab in the only artery
in or out of somewhere. I can't believe we're finally here!
* As it turns out, we had great luck with the buses and more often than not waited less than 30 seconds, thus rendering that entire paragraph pointless. Whoops!
CORRECTIONS
- We do not live in a converted schoolbus. We live in a normal house with two stupid cats who are also secret agents when we're not looking.
- When I stated "We are one with the Lodge", this is not true. Not yet. We watch; we listen; we wait for the moment to strike; we use a little plastic wrist strap to unlock our door and make incidental purchases.
- Sir Weber is not actually a member of the Order of the
British Empire. He is in fact an imaginary elf who feeds on tender
feelings.
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